Missy’s Surviving the storm so we can dance in the rain.

missymoo81

Ok so I’ve sat and worked out it costs me 14p per mile in fuel at the moment. So I’m going to try and workout the best ways to do things, to put trips all together to save on fuel. It costs me £3.36 to do the school run every day! There’s no chance Of walking or biking due to the dual carriageway! Just need to factor work in there as well!

I’m trying to get the food bill down to £40 a week. That’s for 4 of us and 2 cats, not the easiest thing, and some weeks are easier than others. Have put it all into Tesco and have got it to that price. Lidl is slightly cheaper so should cost less from there.

will write more later got all the school stuff to do.

Bluegreen143

Not to sound stupid but how do you work out your cost per mile? I want to do that to hopefully get me driving less!

Sorry your OH is still really struggling.

That’s a really low food target, good luck. We are more than £100 p/w atm for 2 adults and 2 small kids 🙈 does include toiletries/cleaning stuff. Shameful when I used to be able to do it on £50-60p/w! I’m blaming food price rises but it’s not all that. Need to take a leaf out of your book and look at doing cheaper meals again.

RelievedSheff

Bluegreen143 said:

Not to sound stupid but how do you work out your cost per mile? I want to do that to hopefully get me driving less!

Sorry your OH is still really struggling.

That’s a really low food target, good luck. We are more than £100 p/w atm for 2 adults and 2 small kids 🙈 does include toiletries/cleaning stuff. Shameful when I used to be able to do it on £50-60p/w! I’m blaming food price rises but it’s not all that. Need to take a leaf out of your book and look at doing cheaper meals again.

The cost per mile is pretty simple to work out. Work our how may miles per week you do and how much fuel per week you use. Then divide the cost by the number of miles. 

As an example we do approximately 350 miles per week in our car and are currently using £45 per week. So £45/350 = £0.128 per mile.

RelievedSheff

missymoo81 said:

Ok so I’ve sat and worked out it costs me 14p per mile in fuel at the moment. So I’m going to try and workout the best ways to do things, to put trips all together to save on fuel. It costs me £3.36 to do the school run every day! There’s no chance Of walking or biking due to the dual carriageway! Just need to factor work in there as well!

I’m trying to get the food bill down to £40 a week. That’s for 4 of us and 2 cats, not the easiest thing, and some weeks are easier than others. Have put it all into Tesco and have got it to that price. Lidl is slightly cheaper so should cost less from there.

will write more later got all the school stuff to do.

That is a really tight food budget for 4 people and 2 cats. I don't think I could manage that for just the 2 of us and the dog!!

It is quite alarming how much the cost per mile is shooting up for travel. Fingers crossed it is just a temporary blip in prices.

Bluegreen143

I have no idea how many miles I do a week 🤣 in terms of fuel we usually fill the tank twice a month @ around £50 a go but sometimes it needs a bit extra. I’ll investigate and track more in depth!

missymoo81

We got the average mpg from the car screen which was 50 there are 4.5 litres in a gallon. The cost here is £1.53 per litre of diesel. £1.53 x 4.5 = £6.88 per gallon. 

Divide £6.88 by number of miles we get per gallon so 6.88 / 50 = 13.7p per mile.

the I just went on Apple maps and put in each journey I make to see how many miles it is and then x that by 14p (rounding up) that way I can see how much it costs to do each journey.

Hopefully that makes sense.

£40 per week on shopping is low, but we have a few things in the freezer and cupboards. I don’t think it will be that low every week. I don’t want it to go above £50 though if I can help it. 

missymoo81

Ok so had a busy day with work etc. made sandwiches so didn’t spend £15 on meal deals, such a ludicrous amount of money🤦🏻‍♀️. Sorted out EBay woman that was doing my head in and gave a half refund 🙄🙄🙄.

Taxed the car, have booked it into the garage on Wednesday as there is an intermittent fault. Fingers crossed it’s not super expensive. But I’m expecting upwards of £100. 

I have lots of little things creeping up which need to be paid for. Dance show costumes and tickets for May. School trips etc. really do need to try and get the shopping down to £40 this week. Have made my list just need to stick to it. Although have run out of lots of things.

RelievedSheff

Buying ready made lunches really does work out expensive. That's why we always take a packed lunch to work.

Our packed lunches usually cost about £2 per day to make for the two of us. So about £1 each. Much cheaper.

missymoo81

Spoke to sky yesterday and bought our bill down by £11, they were really helpful and super nice, def worth the phone call.  We have Netflix through this as well. Something we’re not prepared to compromise on as we work odd hours we end up watching things late at night and love having the choice of things we’ve recorded or Netflix etc.

OH has sorted broadband etc and his mobile and we’re saving around £50 per month! Crazy! When it’s set up I’m going to change my mobile with a refer a friend link from OH so saving £7 per month but also getting £20 cash back each.

I think the sofa loan is up next month, so that’s a saving of £34. So all in all they’re savings of £100 a month which should help things. Going to cancel the game pass thing on the XBox which isn’t needed that’s another £13 to go. Need to do that today but need OH’s help, the games the children play I will just buy second hand on Amazon, it works out cheaper in the long run. 

We’re not going out for Sunday lunch today, we’ve got in such a habit of it as we work on our phones a lot of Sunday programming for the week ahead. So use that as work time as there is no distractions. But I’m going to cook toad in the hole with the left over frozen pigs in blankets that are unopened that I bought for xmas as the toads. We have broccoli and potatoes. We’ll just have to try and work around home life!

missymoo81

I’ve been really good at waking out the food this week. Really thinking ahead and making sure I’ve left enough slices of bread, ham etc. and not just picking at things during the day. 

I’m reading the frugal living challenge and there are some great tips. One is to put water in the kettle after you’ve used it. Ready for next time, that way it heat ups the water with the residual heat ready for next time! I’ll def use that one. We can also get away with using 1 teabag to be honest we have weak tea. I already water down the milk. I could probably get away with just buttering one piece of bread for sandwiches. I think I’ll start grating the cheese too. I’m also going to try carrot sticks instead of grapes for the children. Someone mentioned it before and I’m going to try this week.